As I'm losing weight, the skin should come back with me, exercise should help w/this, right?

Wrong. I've got a bit of an overhang. Not quite sure what to do about it. The one above my belly button is shrinking quite nicely, so far. It's the one under my belly button that I'm worried about.

I know I don't want to have the skin removed like Carnie Wilson had to have done. My friend is a doctor & told me EXACTLY how the procedure is done. They basically cut into you, lift the excess skin with a TIRE CHAIN, cut off the excess skin & sew you back up. Blech blech blech.

Don't they make you wear compression garments after certain kinds of surgery, to get all the fluids out? Would that work instead, eliminating the need for surgery to remove the excess skin? I'm dead set against any kind of surgery, although when I get to my goal weight, I will most likely have to get a breast lift done.

Just wondering if anyone else is going through this, and how you handled/are handling it.

I can relate to that! And I've heard that it's very, very common for that area to be the absolute worst one when it comes to loose skin, especially for women who have had children, and mine is no exception. However, since it's been so long that I've been even close to ideal weight, I have no idea how bad it will be once I reach goal. And with nearly 75 pounds to go, I'm just not going to worry about it now!

I have heard testimonials from women who do strength training and say that their skin eventually tightened up. I don't know how true that would be for us, nor how long it would take after loosing all the weight. If surgery is worrisome, you may want to give toning exercise time to work, and I'm talking a couple of years here. At any rate, I think it would be prudent to maintain goal weight for at least a few years before surgery -- although for some I suppose getting surgery would be an incentive to watch weight gain very carefully so you don't get in the same situation again!

IMO, if one were to go through the surgery for a breast lift, she may as well do the tummy tuck, too! I know it sounds gross, but it's not like you'd have to observe the procedure! Personally I can't see myself ever being able to afford any kind of cosmetic surgery, so I'm just going to have to accept whatever comes.

As for compression garments, I've never heard of anyone using this sort of thing for flabby skin! I suggest that you don't try anything like that without running it by a doctor though -- My mother had surgery recently and had to wear those things on her legs, and now she's got numbness in one of them.

If you remember Fred from www.onephatman.com he had surgery done to remove extra abdominal skin. He had consulted with the surgeon and at one point he wasn't going to have it done as the surgeon said that the skin would be reabsorbed over the course of several years. Fred decided that he didn't want to wait that long and had the surgery done. Overall it sounds like the experience wasn't that bad or painful. He had a couple of drains in and had to wear a girdle for a couple of weeks I think. I'm definately going to have it done when the time comes.

I noticed on that woman's site (Fat2thin) her surgeon told her he wouldn't even consider doing it until she was at goal for six months. I thihk I said earlier something about waiting a year or two, and I guess the crux of it would be: How confident are you that you will keep off the weight? Over the years I've read varying statistics or opinions of how long one will maintain before they are considered to be "cured." Or is it like an alcoholic, sober but never "cured"? I guess most of us probably know we'll have to be on guard about our weight for the rest of our lives! Circumstances change all the time: we get too busy to fit in our exercise, we are devastated by someone's death, we get sick, we get pregnant ... And if we don't pay attention, it could suddenly become very easy to pack on the pounds. I imagine this has happened before to a lot of us.

Ultimately, I guess my point is that if you're going to spend the money to have this procedure done, I know you aren't going to want to go through it again, so you must be prepared for constant vigilance.

Fred didn't have to wait a certain period of time to have it done. I mean if you are paying for it why would you have to wait? If you gain the weight back and lose it again they are just going to get more business!

I just saw a tv show called SkinDeep that is on the LIFE network or on Discovery Health. The lady was having an abdominoplasty procedure where they did a horizontal incision about where her c-section scar was and then a vertical incision about 4 or 5 inches up to and around her belly button. Then they lifted the skin up and cut away the layer of skin and fat away from the abdominal muscle as far up as her bottom ribs. The skin is still attached at this point just the fat and skin layer is not attached to the muscle. Then they figure out how far they can pull this layer down and cut away a flap from where the vertical incision is, the belly button is still attached to the muscle layer. Then they pull the skin layer down and put in a couple of stiches to hold it while they make a small incision and pull the belly button through and stich it back in place. Then they stich the lower incision together. So it looks like a c-section incision but there is a little more puckering but apparently in about 90% of the people who have it done this puckering will smooth out. It was pretty cool actually. Of course I'm a nurse so I would find it really interesting. Now this lady was actually quite slender and this pot she had was from having her 3 babies. She was working out a lot and the dr said that having the toned ab muscles helped the surgery a lot. She was 39 so I figure by the time I lose all the weight I want I'll probably be about that age so it's not likely I'll have a nice toned tummy without some help. This show has a web page at www.skindeep.tv it isn't that great, I wish it had more descriptions.

A very good site, thanks SAPF. Here you probably wouldn't spend that much time in the hospital unless you had serious complications. Likely as soon as you are up and going to the bathroom you would be sent home even with the drains and just follow up at the dr's office to get them taken out.